The Mini Crossover was developed for people who loved the Mini concept but felt that it would be too small to meet their needs, so the focus of our campaign was to push the roominess of this new model. In Japan, nothing says "Big!" like a sumo wrestler, so we took this as our visual motif. In addition to the TV ad featuring sumo wrestlers with the Mini, we used the same striking imagery in flyers and print ads, and promoted it with a prize banner in the ring of the Grand Sumo May tournament. A big event happening in Japan at the same time was the opening of the Tokyo Skytree – the world’s tallest television tower. We tied this in with a campaign in the Skytree Town shopping and entertainment complex and in railway stations on the route to the tower. The functional, rational design of Mini Crossover was illustrated with a direct mail shot that unfolded into a capacious container, and we made extensive use of HTML5 to create an interactive web page, MINI CROSSOVER. BIG POINT.
The strong, simple visuals of the TV ads created a stir on Twitter, Facebook and other social media, and Mini received their largest ever number of test drive applications. MINI CROSSOVER. BIG POINT won BRONZE SPIKE in the Digital category at Spikes Asia 2012 as well as featured as a highly rated "Site of the day" on web award sites such as CSS Design Awards and Awwwards.